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Frankly My Dear...

    Frankly My Dear...

    EXCLUSIVE: Julianne Hough, Ariel in the new ‘Footloose,’ talks about the role

    Posted: 08 Oct 2011 04:59 AM PDT

    “I don't think this is a really a dance movie,” Julianne Hough, 23, says of the new “Footloose” that she stars in, opening next Friday. “I see it as a drama with dance in it. It's more about the message, the moral of the story, about how you can't over-protect your kids.

    “The choreographer and [director] Craig [Brewer] wanted the dance to not feel forced, to be a natural thing that was happening in that scene. And they wanted it kind of loose, not so precise that everybody's hitting their exact marks. Dance movies are usually about all the camera angles and quick cuts and precision. This one was all wide shots, not as many cuts. That made it feel like a dance movie from an earlier time.

    “I had to really tone my dancing down. I didn't want to look like a professional dancer, right? So I had to TONE down my whipping of the hair. The 'hair-ography' is what Craig and I call it. Too much of that gives me away. Got to watch out for that.

    “The dancing is a mix of styles. The first big dance is urban, hip-hop based. Then the second dance scene is this sexier version of country line dancing. And then the last big one is a combination of most everything.

    “I think the dances capture who Ariel is, and what she's going through. In the beginning, there's all the grinding with her trying too hard to be sexy, trying to make her boyfriend jealous. It's all about the sex.

    “By the second dance, she's kind of getting back to her roots, trying to be a better girl, not all about the sex. She's flirting, but she's not throwing herself at Ren. She's not out to make anybody jealous, relaxing just a little bit.

    “And the last dance is kind of like she's gone backwards further, just going back to being a teenager. It's just having fun on the dance floor, without a lot of sensuality, without worrying 'I want to look GOOD right now.' She's just being free.

    “I like that progression, that part of the story through dance.

    “It's not so much that Ariel’s this WILD child that I can identify with, but I can relate to the hurt and the loss and the pain that she's recovering from by BEING a wild child. I can identify with what must have been going through her head much more than I can the way she acts out.  That's so much about us that's similar that it was almost like it was free therapy for me.”